Hasta La Ideas

pAs someone who does Ia lot/I of walking, I have more than a casual interest in comfortable footwear. And I always assumed that the sneaker, independent of whatever bells and whistles come out each year, has been largely perfected as a product: A hard outsole on the bottom and a soft, cushy midsole against your foot, wrapped around the top with a fabric upper and some laces./p

pSneaker designer and A HREF=”http://www.golite-footwear.com/” Go-Lite Footwear/A owner Doug Clark, who has thirty years of experience in the field, knows better. The central design of sneakers, he points out, is flawed; they’ve got the bottoms on upside-down. For example, let’s say the wearer steps on a small rock or irregularity protruding off of the ground. The rigid outsole will then act like a lever, see-sawing your foot into a skewed angle and, if you’re elderly or have a poor sense of balance, lead to possible injury. /p

pThis is one of those things that takes several sentences to describe but can be understood visually right away. If you’re not a footwear designer, you may not be willing to sit through the following video’s amateurish presentation and god-awful camera shake–did they film this in the back of a helicopter?–but if you want to see the central point, fast-forward to the 2:00 mark. /p

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pIf you want to read more about Clark and his methodologies, there’s an in-depth local-paper article on him A HREF=”http://www.tnhonline.com/unh-history-alum-gains-new-respect-for-shoes-1.1472023″ here/A.br /
/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/materials/footwear_designers_why_sneaker_soles_should_actually_be_upside_down_16505.asp”(more…)/a
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